Market-Driven Requirements Engineering Process Model – MDREPM

Abstract: Research findings in requirements engineering (RE) report that software organizations still struggle in establishing processes that lead to proper requirements handling. This leads to the acknowledgement that the adoption of good requirements engineering practices by industry is still not common. Although some initiatives have been made to spread the use of good practices of bespoke RE, the area of market-driven requirements engineering (MDRE) still lacks a contribution in that direction. MDRE is characterized by strong market and strategic orientation, which contrasts with the customer/development organization relationship of bespoke RE. This poses several challenges to software product organizations, such as the need for aligning development activities with organizational and product strategies. In an attempt to help these organizations to realize the benefits of MDRE, this Master Thesis presents the Market-Driven Requirements Engineering Process Model (MDREPM). MDREPM is both a collection of good practices in MDRE, and an assessment tool for organizations to get a snapshot of the current state of their MDRE practices. The assessment intends to reveal problem areas of organization’s requirements process, which can then be worked upon by introducing good practices described in the model. The thesis describes the motivation for creating MDREPM, both from an academia and industry perspectives. In addition, it describes the process of developing the model, from its creation through to its validation within academia and industry. As the series of three case studies conducted indicate, the MDREPM has been shown to be useful for industry practitioners. A unanimous opinion has been found as to the good coverage it provides of issues related to MDRE, and as to its usefulness for driving improvement efforts in requirements engineering.